Our brains sure do have a way of messing with our minds. One moment, you can be spitting out the names of your entire third-grade class, the batting statistics from the 1974 St. Louis Cardinals, the color dress you wore to the eighth-grade Sadie Hawkins dance, or the entire script from your favorite Seinfeld episode. The next minute, you space on the name of your cat.

No matter what we may think causes our decline in mental acuity, most people share a pretty big assumption about our gray matter: Either our brains are genetically determined to be Ginsu sharp for the duration, or that we're eventually going to live life putting on our underwear last. That is, we believe that our genes completely control our neurological destiny. That simply isn't true.

Thankfully, there are many ways to keep your brain operating at maximum efficiency, maximum power, and maximum quality.